


Finally On Top

by TrystaWhitlock



Category: JAG (TV 1995)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:26:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26990608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrystaWhitlock/pseuds/TrystaWhitlock
Summary: Being there for an old friend in a time of grief brings Harm and Mac face-to-face for the first time in years.Set after the events of the NCIS: LA storyline.One off.  Completed.
Relationships: Sarah MacKenzie/Harmon Rabb Jr.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Finally On Top

Harm removed his cover and tucked it under his arm automatically as he stepped through the door. He looked around the room and moved towards a pew near the back of the church. He slipped in quietly and took a seat. The exterior stone façade gave the impression of a much larger space. Inside was cramped, it likely held no more than a few dozen parishioners at most. As he looked at the front of the chapel and saw the photo beside the alter, he felt his throat tighten. He squeezed his eyes shut and bowed his head forward.

  
“Captain Rabb.”

  
Harm quickly wiped his eyes and looked up at the sound of his name. He saluted instinctively as he snapped to attention.

“Colonel Mackenzie.”

Sarah quickly returned the salute then took a step forward and hugged him. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am Harm.”

He hugged her back silently for a few moments. He leaned away and cleared his throat before saying “Thanks Mac.”

They stood silently looking toward the front of the church for a few minutes.

“How does a sixteen-year-old injury kill a thirty-two-year-old woman?” Harm muttered, more to himself than to her.

“She put up a hell of a fight for every day of those sixteen years.” Sarah commented not knowing what else to say. She looked at him in earnest for the first time now; he looked like he had aged a dozen years since she had video conferenced him three days ago. The bags below his crystal blue eyes were dark and heavy, emphasized by the red surrounding his eyes. “When was the last time you slept?”

He shrugged before muttering “I slept on the cot.”

“Really? Because you look like you haven’t slept in three days,” she answered. He didn’t respond, he just kept his eyes locked on the picture of Mattie at the front of the church. “She loved that picture because you took it. That’s why Tommy chose it, it was her favorite.”

“I should have been here.” Harm crumpled onto the pew behind him.

“You can’t be in two places at once. Mattie was so proud of your service. She told every nurse who would listen about you. When you got promoted to XO I think everyone in the hospital got chapter and verse about the carrier and the size of the crew you were going to be in charge of,” Mac told him as she sat beside him. “She told everyone how amazing her dad was.”

“I’m not – I wasn’t her father.”

“Maybe not biologically, but in every way that mattered most you were, and she made sure everyone knew that was how she thought of you.”

“Some father. I was ten thousand miles away while she died.” Had there been anyone else in the chapel he would have been self-conscious about the tears that slid down his face as he spoke the words. Mac was the one person he could let the walls down around and he felt like the wave that he’d been trying to keep back was threatening to crush him. He covered his face with his hands for a moment before looking up at the photo of Mattie again. “I should have been here.”

After another few minutes of silence, Sarah touched his shoulder gently. “I’ll give you a few minutes alone. I’ll be outside when you’re ready.”

“Ready?” Harm asked barely above a whisper.

“I’m going to drive you to your hotel. You’re too exhausted to drive.”

“I never even thought to book a room anywhere.”

“I’ll still give you a few minutes alone,” Sarah said, not wanting to argue with him in the church. As she stood, she felt his hand clamp onto hers tightly. She looked down at him.

He was still staring forward at the photo. Without looking at her he whispered, “Please stay, Sarah.”

She sat back down and put her hand on top of his. She looked at the photo silently as she felt a few jolts rip through him as he fought to contain the sobs trying to break free. She closed her eyes and took several deep, slow breaths. Seeing him hurt like this was like a punch to the gut. She wanted to do something, anything to ease his pain, but she knew there was nothing that she could do but be here for him.

After a few minutes he took a deep breath and swiped at his face roughly with his hand. He squeezed Mac’s hand.

“I need to get out of here,” his voice was thick and rough as he spoke.

They both stood and walked to the door. As they exited, the bright sunlight seemed somehow both inappropriate and blinding after the subdued luminescence inside.

Harm began walking toward the rental car that he’d arrived in when Mac grabbed his elbow and pulled him towards her car. “No way, you are not driving right now. I’ll call Bud and have him send someone for the car.” She insisted.

Harm simply nodded as he turned in the direction of the car she’d driven. They traveled in silence to the hotel Mac was staying at. When they got to the hotel, Harm finally spoke.

“I’ll go check in,” he said absently.

“Harm, why don’t you just stay with me? I have a suite; it doesn’t make sense for you to get your own room,” Mac told him. “We’ll order some room service and then you can get some sack time.”

“I doubt you’ll want me around tonight, Mac. I won’t be very good company.”

“Harm, whether we go to my room or one that you take for the night, I’m not letting you spend the night alone,” Mac said gently.

Harm forced a tiny smile as he shook his head. “I guess there’s no point in arguing with you about this.”

“Nope, none.” As they passed the front desk she stopped and had them issue a second keycard for the room which she handed to Harm. “I know you like running at obnoxious hours of the day and night. This way you don’t get locked out.”

“Thanks Mac.” Harm took the keycard and slipped it into his pocket as he followed her to the elevator. They were silent until they reached her room and got inside.

“If you want to grab a shower, I’ll call for some food and a change of clothes for you.” Mac unbuttoned her uniform jacket and hung it in the closet as she spoke. She unpinned and shook her hair loose from the low bun she’d had it tied into.

He nodded absently as he hung his jacket beside hers. As he looked at them in the closet a pain completely separate from what he’d been wrestling with all day hit him like a freight train. Seeing their uniforms hanging side by side like that brought back the first night they had spent in the house they had shared; the first thing they had done was hang their jackets side by side. It also brought back the last night in that same house before he deployed; the night they had officially called off their engagement. Now the freight train was on fire, picking up speed and heading for a sharp curve.

He made his way to the bathroom and paused at the door. “Need the bathroom before I get in there?”

“No, thank you.” Sarah forced herself to smile a little as she answered him. She felt like someone had grabbed her heart and pulled it out of her chest. This small gesture, a simple question, and she felt like she was back in their home, jockeying for the one bathroom in the morning as they had so often. When she heard the bathroom door close she let a shaky breath out and put her hand to her stomach. She’d never been this much of a masochist before. She knew why she was having him stay here tonight; she didn’t want him to be alone when the reality and grief of Mattie’s death hit him full force. But what was it going to do to her having him here? She knew that the pain in her chest would take weeks to dull away to a manageable level.

She called down to the restaurant and ordered their food then called the front desk and asked to have some clothes sent up. One of the perks of staying at a hotel that catered to an almost exclusively military clientele was that they were accustomed to getting requests for clothes when bags went missing or when rapid orders meant that there simply was not enough time to throw clothes in a bag before getting on the transport.

By the time Sarah heard the water shut off, the food had arrived and the clothes were laid in a neat pile on the bed. She had changed into her pajamas, sweat pants and an old t-shirt, because she hadn’t known what else to do with the nervous energy coursing through her. The door of the bathroom cracked open and Harm looked out to see where she was. She called without looking in the direction of the bathroom “Clothes are on the bed and the food is here.”

By the time she had checked the dishes and set them out on the small dining table Harm emerged from the bedroom in the generic grey sweatpants and t-shirt that she’d requested for him. She looked over at him and felt her heart stutter as her breath caught in her chest. She felt the same electric crackle throughout her body that she had felt the first time she met him and every time she had looked at him since. She forced herself to keep breathing and grinned. “Feel better? Physically I mean?”

“Yeah, thanks.” He replied as evenly as he could manage. She was wearing a pair of grey sweat pants that looked similar to the ones he had on, but the t-shirt was unmistakably unique; or maybe it was only unique to his eyes since it was one of his t-shirts. It was faded and well worn, but the block letters spelling out NAVY were still legible across the chest. He felt a pang of longing as he realized that she still wore his old t-shirt to sleep in. It was quickly followed by a flush of desire as he remembered so many mornings when he’d walked into the kitchen to see her preparing coffee wearing nothing but that particular shirt, her long shapely legs bare as she moved deftly around the room with a gracefulness that had always captivated him.

He reminded himself that he had no right to be having those thoughts. She was there as a friend and nothing more. She had made it very clear that she was only here to ensure that when he crashed emotionally, and they both knew it was coming, soon, he wasn’t alone and wouldn’t do something foolish.

He made his way to the table and sat down. He looked at the bottle of beer that sat on the table beside one of the covered plates. He then looked over at her curiously as she came to sit across from him with a glass of club soda in her hand. “Sorry, they didn’t have the brand you usually drink. I hope domestic is okay,” she said as she gestured towards the bottle.

“It’s great. Thank you.” He lifted the lid from his food and saw something that would probably have been quite appealing under different circumstances. The scent made his stomach growl, reminding him how long it had been since he’d had anything more than an energy bar to eat on one of the flights from the Middle East.

“The chef here has an entire vegetarian menu. I hope you still like stir fry with extra water chestnuts,” Mac said as casually as she could manage as he looked at it. She couldn’t shake the strange case of nerves that had overtaken her. If she were being honest with herself, it wasn’t exactly nerves, but more the energy required to keep herself in check around him that had her so wound up. She decided focusing on her salad with grilled chicken would be a better alternative than rambling pointlessly about food.

“Yeah, I do. Don’t get it very often on deployment so this is perfect.” Harm did his best to keep his eyes on his plate as they ate in near silence. Despite his efforts, he couldn’t help sneaking quick looks at her. Her hair still mostly the deep chestnut that had fascinated him, now tempered ever so slightly with a few glints of silver here and there. Her skin was still that perfect balance between pale and tan, though a few hints of wrinkles now added character and depth to the corners of her eyes, and her lips were as full and naturally dusty rose as he remembered. He forced his thoughts away from her lips as he felt a familiar tingle in his core and the physical reaction that he usually experienced when he let his mind wander to her body. He was suddenly thankful for the fact that the table was solid wood and not glass.

The rest of their meal passed awkwardly as they both tried not to acknowledge the electricity that was almost palpable between them. After they packed the dishes up and put them outside the door for the cleaning service, Harm noticed that Mac had begun twisting her fingers in that subtle way she did when she was anxious.

“I’ll take the foldout, you can take the bedroom,” she said as she went to the sofa and began moving cushions off it.

“I’m not taking your bed and making you sleep on a pullout,” Harm said as he pulled cushions off the other end.

“Harm, you haven’t slept in days. You’re not sleeping on a foldout. Take the bed, I’ll be fine.”

“Fine, I’ll sleep in the bed. If you will too,” Harm agreed.

“I – I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Harm.”

“I really don’t want to be alone tonight, Mac.”

After a moment, Mac nodded and put the cushions back on the sofa. They made their way to the bedroom.

Automatically they turned the sheets down together and slipped into the bed as though they’d never spent a night apart. At first, they faced away from each other, but it was only moments before Harm broke the silence. He turned to face the center of the bed before calling her name quietly. She turned over to face him, their bodies mere inches from one another.

“Thank you for everything. I can’t imagine trying to process all this without you here,” he said in a soft but serious voice.

“Of course.” They kept their eyes locked on each other for a moment. There it was; she saw the shift in his eyes and knew that the barriers were finally breaking; everything that had happened was about to come crashing down on him. “I am always going to be here for you, Harm.” He closed his eyes and she saw the glint of a tear sliding over the bridge of his nose in the dim light from the window.

This was the part that she had been dreading. Every instinct she had was screaming for her to pull him to her and assure him that everything would be okay, while every bit of logic in her was warning her not to touch him and reminding her how much it would hurt later. When she felt the mattress shudder slightly as he stifled the sob, she couldn’t stand it anymore.

She slid herself closer to him and touched his face gently with her hand. “I’m here, I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered as she caressed his cheek. She suppressed a small shiver as she felt him move his body closer and wrap his arms around her. As right as it felt to be in his arms, she could feel his anguish through his embrace. She stroked his hair gently as he held her and finally allowed himself to completely surrender to the grief. It wasn’t long before sheer exhaustion overwhelmed him and he drifted into restless sleep, his arms still holding her tightly to his chest.

When morning arrived and Harm groggily opened his eyes, he was surprised to see that he was still clinging to her slender frame. They had shifted slightly as they slept, instinctively curling into the position that they had slept in when they lived together; both on their right sides, Sarah curled slightly with her right arm beneath her head, him pressed against her back with his arm draped across her and her left arm atop his, their fingers intertwined.

He inhaled deeply through his nose. The scent of honey, orange and almond flooded his brain. She still used the same unique shampoo. The scent and the feeling of her curled against him, sleeping so peacefully was almost physically painful. He missed these moments more than anything else. More than the extravagant dinners and the state galas, more than the runs on the beach or taking her flying, more than anything else that their relationship had ever been. These quiet, simple, perfect moments were what he would give anything for more of.  
Without thinking, he hugged her just a little tighter, whispered “I love you, Sarah,” and gently pressed his lips to the side of her neck, kissing her just below her ear.

She drew in a deep breath and pressed herself back against him, squeezing his hand tightly. Her eyes were still closed as she let go of his hand and rolled over so that she was facing him, curled snugly against him and pressed her hand to his chest. A few racing heartbeats later, she opened her eyes and looked up into his. She held them for a few more beats before sliding her hand up from his chest to gently graze her fingertips along his jawline. She looked at his lips for a moment before once again bringing her eyes to his, deep, rich chocolate brown connecting with clear, icy blue.

“I love you too, Harm,” her voice was still thick and low with sleep, but it sounded like velvet to his ears; soft, warm, and comforting.

He touched her hair and gently brushed a wayward strand away from her forehead and eyes. His thumb brushed across her cheek as he kept his eyes trained on hers, hoping to keep the connection a little longer.

“God, I miss you.” Harm eventually said quietly. As soon as he said the words, he knew he’d broken the magic of the moment. Mac closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against his cheek. He clenched his jaw as he cursed himself for saying it.

“I miss you too. There isn’t a day when I don’t miss being with you, Harm.” Her voice was scarcely more than a breath, but he heard the words as clearly as if she’d screamed them.

“Why do we always end up hurting each other the way that we do?” his voice surprised him. He’d thought the question so often but never asked it. No, with all that had happened, somehow he wanted answers more than anything. “We love each other, we miss each other, we want to be together, but we walked away. Why did we do it?”

“Fate always seems to have other plans for us,” Sarah said with a shrug.

“To Hell with Fate. You’re the greatest person I have ever had in my life and for the last decade we’ve been alone. No more. I’m not going to let Fate or anything else keep me away from you, Sarah.” Harm shifted slightly so that he could see her face. He gently put his fingers below her chin and tilted her face up to his. “Sarah.” He waited until she opened her eyes and looked at him. “You are the love of my life and I don’t want to lose another minute without you.”

“You’re the love of my life too, Harm. But we both know you’re happier in the air or on the sea than landlocked. Neither of us can get the military out of our blood and…” her voice faltered.

“And what?” Harm coaxed. “Please tell me what you’re thinking.”

“And I would rather us love each other and not be together than be together and end up hating each other.” Now it was Sarah’s turn for tears to well in her eyes. “I saw it starting when we were living together. You resented giving up your commission to be with me, it was eating away at you and it was poisoning what we had.”

“You’re right, I did resent that I gave up my commission, but I didn’t resent you because of it. I hated not being in the service, it was true, then. But the truth now is that since I have been back in all I have been able to think about is what a huge mistake I made by leaving you. Every day since I moved out of our house, I have regretted it. I want you in my life more than anything else, Mac.” He paused, put his forehead against hers and laced his fingers with hers. “Mac, I want to come home, if you’ll have me. I want us to finally make the life together that we keep cheating ourselves out of.”

“Harm,” Sarah breathed his name and felt herself losing every argument she’d had in her head about why she couldn’t say the words that she so desperately wanted to. She wanted to say yes, to tell him to stay with her and that they could erase the last decade and simply be themselves in love again. “You’re just saying this because you’re upset about Mattie.”

“This has nothing to do with Mattie.” Harm pulled away from her slightly.

“Yes, it does. You’re upset and feeling like you should have been here because you couldn’t make it back in time to see her before she died. It’s making you wish you’d made different decisions in life and since you can’t change that you weren’t here for her, you’re convincing yourself that you want to be here for me.” The words sounded hollow to her own ears. She knew they weren’t true; knew the damage they would cause. Still she said them because she couldn’t stand the idea of him growing to hate her. “You don’t have to. I accepted a long time ago that what we had is over.” These words were hot poison as she forced them out.

“No.” The word snapped out of him like a shot. “No, it’s not over. You just said that you still love me. You know that I still love you. How is that over? In what universe is that being over?” he asked her.

“I don’t think loving each other is actually enough in our case, Harm. We’ve been in love with each other for over 20 years and we have never been able to make it work. I just – I don’t think we’re meant to be together.” She closed her eyes as she spoke. The words were like knives in her own chest, she couldn’t take seeing his response to hearing them.

“So, because we haven’t gotten it right yet, you’re willing to just give up on what we could be?”

“Yes.” She meant to say it, but her voice refused to work. It was just a heavy whisper as she forced the single syllable from her.

“I don’t believe you. If we were over, really over, you would be able to look at me when you say it,” Harm challenged her.

Sarah looked into his eyes, intending to force his hand, but her resolve crumbled and the words wouldn’t come out. She tried to finally put an end to this dance that they’d been going around and around with for so long but the words died in her throat. He was right; she couldn’t say it if she had to face him while she did it.

“Sarah, do you remember what you said when we were leaving Paraguay?” he asked her suddenly.

“Wow, that’s beyond ancient history,” she remarked thrown and uncertain of where he was going with this?

“You said we would never work because we both always wanted to be on top, physically and emotionally,” he reminded her. “And you were right. We were both so determined to be the alpha in the relationship that we ended up wasting the last decade. We could have been together if we could have found a way to stop trying to one up each other. I’m tired of wasting the time that we have, Mac. I want to be with you and I know, whether you will admit it or not, you want to be with me too.”

“Harm, we’re still the same people. Which means we still can’t both be on top,” she whispered. She could feel that ripping sensation in her chest again.

“Are we though? Do you think we’re really the same people that we were twenty years ago? We haven’t grown or changed at all?” He touched her face gently and sighed. “I don’t want to waste another twenty years, Mac.”

“You’re feeling that way now because you’re upset about Mattie,” she insisted again, knowing it was a below-the-belt shot but also realizing it was probably the only one that might land hard enough to finally end this. “Once you heal from losing her, you’ll feel differently.” Sarah closed her eyes as she spoke. She knew this part was true, but she hated having to acknowledge it.

“This has nothing to do with losing Mattie. Am I completely gutted because I wasn’t able to be here for her at the end and didn’t get to tell her how proud of her I was or how I thought of her like a daughter? Yes, and I am, and it’s something I am never going to forgive myself for.” He paused as his voice cracked and his eyes rimmed with tears. “Regardless of all that, me loving you has never had anything to do with anyone but you and I.” Harm took a deep breath before he continued. “I want to finish what we started, Mac. I want to marry you and finally stop with the seemingly never-ending carousel of almost being together. I want us to stop finding reasons why we won’t work and find the reasons why we will.”

“I wish it were that simple, Harm.”

“Isn’t it?” he asked her. He kissed her forehead. “I want you, Mac. More than anything else, I want you.” He looked at her face closely and could see that she was on the verge of tears. “If you don’t want me, if it’s taken me too long to realize where I truly belong, I won’t force the issue. But if you want me too, then I’m not wasting another day.”

“Damnit Harm…” her voice shook as she looked up at him now. “You’re the love of my life; I’ve wanted you since the first time I met you. Of course I still want you. How could I not?”

Before she could fully finish the last word, Harm leaned his head towards hers and kissed her gently. His lips on hers were like a catalyst setting fire to everything within her that she’d been trying so hard to keep locked away. Every fiber of her wanted this and so much more. Not just because it felt so familiar, but because it felt right in a way that nothing in her life ever had. When they stopped thinking, stopped talking, and just connected like this, it was perfect. She instinctively pressed herself against him, feeling the rush of a hunger that she’d not experienced since the last time they’d been together more than a decade earlier.

When Harm gently pulled himself away from her, her eyes flew open and she looked at him questioningly.  
“I need to show you something,” he said, as he twisted away and fluidly got off the bed. He went to the other room and returned a moment later. He settled back into his place beside her before pulling her on top of him. She instinctively straddled him and put her hands on his chest. He looked up at her silently until she couldn’t stand the silence.

“What are you up to?”

Harm smiled as he continued to look up at her. He brushed the back of his fingers along her left forearm. Eventually he took a deep breath before saying “I love you, Sarah, with all my heart. I have been in love with you since the moment I touched you hand day Admiral Chegwidden introduced us. I hate that it took me this long to realize just how much.” He moved his right hand so that it was between them. In his fingers he held a stunning diamond ring. “Sarah Mackenzie, will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she whispered with a lack of hesitation that surprised her. She held her hand out to him and he slid the ring into place on the fourth finger of her left hand. “When did you buy a ring?”

“Over a year ago,” he admitted. “Just after that incident on the Independence. Seeing you, I knew I couldn’t keep running away from what I felt for you. I had intended to come see you next month, but I guess life had different ideas.”

“You were going to take shore leave to randomly come propose to me?” she asked genuinely perplexed.

“No, I was going to wait for my discharge.” He kept his eyes on hers as he spoke. “I put my papers in the same time I bought the ring. This is my last tour; I’ve retired from the Navy. Officially.”

“What?”

“I’ve spent too much of my life on the wrong side of the world from you, Sarah. I can’t do it anymore.” He shrugged as he rested his hands on her hips. “This is where I belong. It took me far too long to understand that, but I finally figured it out.” He smiled at the look of surprise and confusion on her face. “I already have a job lined up. I’m going to be head legal counsel for a small aviation firm out of Norfolk. They’re a small fleet, but they have a few contracts with the military for minimum security transports of non-essentials. They’re quite pleased that they’re getting a lawyer who understands how the military works and understands the UCMJ. They want to make sure they stay on the right side of the letter of the law. And one of the perks is that the majority of my work will be done remotely, so as long as I have an internet connection and a laptop, I can work from anywhere. I should have mentioned that is my one marriage condition; high speed internet and a secure router.”

“Oh, well in that case…” she pulled on the ring for a second as if she were going to take it off. She smiled down at him and shook her head. “I can’t believe you did all this for me.” She leaned down, laying atop him, her chin resting on his chest. “Are you afraid we’re going to screw this up again?”

“No.” There was no hesitation in his response. “I think we’re going to make mistakes from time to time and I think we’re going to have moments when we question what we were thinking, but I know we are going to make it work this time.”

“How do you know?”

“Because for the first time in our relationship, we’re not both trying to be on top.” He touched her hair and smiled at her. “I’m a civilian now; I’ve finally got the military out of my system. My decision to leave wasn’t impulsive or out of some rebellious defiance, I’m just done with that part of my life. Which means no more constant Navy-Marine pissing contest subtext to every word we say, no more pulling rank, no trying to out maneuver each other in court. It’s just us now. Maybe it’s just me but our bed already feels much less crowded.” He saw the flicker of uncertainty that flashed across her face. “Yes, Sarah, I am positive that this is what I want.”

“I love you.” It was all she could think to say. “And for the record,” she shifted so that her face was nearly touching his “you were right. We were never over to me.”


End file.
